Vermont house concerts make music intimate

How many concerts have you been to where you take your shoes off at the door? If your answer is "zero," you've probably never been to a house concert.

House concerts have been around forever — front-porch jam sessions and the "kitchen tunks" common in Vermont in the first half of the 20th century are informal variations of the theme. Nowadays, though, house concerts are one part casual music-filled gathering and one part professional performance involving tickets, touring musicians and even the occasional pared-down light show.

"I love them immensely," Vermont native and musician Gregory Douglass wrote in an email Friday from his new home in Los Angeles. Douglass estimates he has performed 500 house concerts in 15 years — his website has a lengthy explanation of how house concerts work and why he thinks people should hold them in their homes — and he said it's the best way for artists and fans to experience music given today's "hemorrhaging live music scene."

"As a singer/songwriter," Douglass wrote, "I've always loved intimate, 'listening room' settings because the audience gets an opportunity to listen and connect with your music in ways that many traditional venues can't offer."

Another expatriate Vermont musician, Anders Parker, said he's built five national tours around house concerts since 2006; he just wrapped up a tour this month that included house concerts in places ranging from Philadelphia to Charles City, Iowa. He said he can play a music club for three times as many people, but because of a club's overhead costs he'd make half the money he can earn at a house concert.

"It's so intimate. There's no barriers. It's basically you and a chair and a guitar," Parker, who recently moved from Burlington to Brooklyn, said of house concerts. "Every one I've played there's usually a couple of people but often a lot of people who've never been to such a thing, and they find it compelling, the immediacy. That's cool, that people kind of get transported, which to me is what music's all about."

The Burlington Free Press attended two house concerts in Vermont this spring; one to the far north in Shelburne and one down south in Manchester Center. Both featured homemade food, a relaxed party vibe and musicians playing warm acoustic songs for up-close, rapt, shoeless crowds.

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Five Burlington area acts perform in living room of Alison and Joplin James. Produced by BRENT HALLENBECK / FREE PRESS

'It's a real party'

Before Alison James could welcome guests with a handshake or a hug, she had to wipe her hands on a kitchen towel. She was busy kneading dough for flatbread before the house concert she and her husband, Joplin James, hosted at their home in Shelburne.

Karen Krajacic performs at a house concert hosted by Joplin and Alison James in Shelburne.

(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the FREE PRESS)

The finished product — baked flatbread topped with cheese and veggies — made its way upstairs to a table full of soup, salad, cookies and other edibles the concert attendees dug into before the music began in the living room downstairs. Five acts were on the bill in a concert to benefit Young Tradition Vermont, a nonprofit group that encourages aspiring folk musicians. The nearly 50 people sat in chairs flanked by a fish tank, potted plants and fully stocked bookshelves as they listened to the performers.

"I do love the house concert — so intimate and intimidating," the first performer, Karen Krajacic, told the crowd as she began playing her quiet folk music. She didn't have to speak up; the nearest audience member was only about 3 feet away.

Alison James, an author and member of the Young Tradition Vermont board of directors, said her family began what's known as the Treewild House Concert Series about a decade ago. The idea came to them after they hosted musicians in town for the Champlain Valley Folk Festival, many of whom told the couple that their woody, rural home would be a great spot for house concerts.

Hana Zara performs at a house concert hosted by Joplin and Alison James in Shelburne.

(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the FREE PRESS)

Ten years later, James said, she and her husband are still excited to welcome people into their home to play and to hear music. "For us it's two things," she said. "It's just such a high to create a situation where people are so transformed in the presence of such music. It's a real party, and everybody comes and everybody's really happy."

"The bigger overarching goal for us is our daughter's a musician and she's going to go out and make her mark in that world," she said of McKinley James, 18, a cellist. She's meeting numerous people in the music world, according to James, because of the regular stream of performers coming through their home.

The concert at the James home felt intimate not only because it featured acoustic musicians performing in a small space; the relaxed nature of hanging out in a comfortable living room makes the evening much more interactive than it would be with a similarly sized crowd in a small music venue. The wall that can exist between performer and listener was obliterated.

After singer-songwriter Hana Zara played a sad song titled "Day of the Dead," a woman in the audience said, "We're crying over here." Zara replied, "I live to make people cry." Zara's next melancholy song, about her appreciation for her father, drew more tears. "Joplin, can you grab the tissue box, please?" Alison James asked her husband as the crowd laughed. The family's black cat roamed among the crowd and the performers. A ticking clock on the fireplace mantel served as an unintended metronome.

The members of the crowd came after receiving an invitation from the hosts, though anyone who wants to attend can request an invitation. The couple charges admission, but unless the funds are going to an organization like Young Tradition Vermont they go into the pockets of the musicians themselves.

Karen Krajacic performs at a house concert hosted by Joplin and Alison James in Shelburne.

(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the FREE PRESS)

"We're not making any money" on the concerts, James said. "We're just throwing a party, and people are supporting the musicians."

'Too great for words'

Guests at the concert Doug Hacker and his wife, Caroline Schneider, presented at their home in Manchester Center last month first had to get through the guy at the door — the couple's chipper 11-year-old son, Kai, who welcomed visitors as they made their way downstairs to (of course) deposit their shoes. The couple's older son, Ethan, 16, manned the sound board for the night's performer, singer-songwriter Heather Maloney.

Hacker began his series, Billsville House Concerts, at his then-home in Williamstown, Mass. His sons were attending the independent school Southshire Community School across the Vermont border in North Bennington, and he arranged for Vermont rocker Grace Potter to do a benefit concert for the school in 2009. (Hacker, who works for a software company, helped design the website for Grace Potter & the Nocturnals.)

That whetted Hacker's appetite for presenting shows, and after a music-blogging friend in Colorado told him about a house concert she hosted he decided to host his own. Hacker emailed the manager for his favorite musician, Texas-based singer-songwriter Joe Pug, asking if Pug could play a show at Hacker's home. The manager emailed back a few hours later saying, "Sure."

Heather Maloney encourages the crowd to clap along April 11 at a Billsville House Concert in Manchester Center.

(Photo: BRENT HALLENBECK/FREE PRESS)

"I sort of freaked out a little," Hacker said. Pug showed up on a rainy Tuesday in 2011 and played a concert for 45 people gathered in Hacker's home. The host sat mesmerized as he watched his favorite musician perform in his living room.

"For the encore he says, 'Doug, what song do you want to hear?' I was like, 'This is too great for words,'" Hacker said. "It was so easy I thought, 'Maybe we should do that again.'"

And again, and again, and again; Hacker and his family have hosted more than 70 Billsville House Concerts, the past half-dozen or so at their new home on an isolated hill outside Manchester Center. They've welcomed acts from around the country and Canada as well as Vermont musicians including Anais Mitchell, Caroline Rose and Maryse Smith.

"Nobody's walking away with a profit other than the musician," Hacker said.

Posters of past Billsville House Concerts shows line the walls at Doug Hacker’s home in Manchester Center.

(Photo: BRENT HALLENBECK/FREE PRESS)

One night in mid-April the performer was Maloney of nearby Northampton, Mass., whose new album, "Making Me Break," came out April 28. She stood in a corner of the family's home where the living room and kitchen meet, with rows of listeners sitting in front of her and to her right, beneath a pine-board ceiling and a string of white lights. Snacks and beverages lined the kitchen counter. A revolving multi-colored disco ball illuminated the bathroom.

The room was quiet except for the music and the crowd's applause; unlike a night club, there were no clinking glasses or chattering audience members.

"What is it about Vermont? Performances here just feel different," Maloney said, adding that her shows in Vermont always "feel more alive." At the end of the night she thanked Hacker and Schneider for "opening your home for music and for people," and noted that their teenage son ran the sound board "like a champ."

Gordie Jones made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from his home in Colchester to Hacker's home in Manchester Center. He said Maloney's show was the fourth Billsville House Concert he's been to there.

"It's just an incredible experience," Jones said after Maloney's performance. "You come and see world-class musicians here."

Northampton, Mass., singer-songwriter Heather Maloney performs April 11 at a Billsville House Concert in Manchester Center.

(Photo: BRENT HALLENBECK/FREE PRESS)

Jones, who planned to stay at his parents' home in Poultney rather than drive back late that night to Colchester, said he reunites with fellow music-loving friends from as far as Connecticut at Hacker's shows. "We come meet in this central place," he said. "It's a social thing, too."

First and foremost, though, it's a listening room, Jones said. "You're not here for a party," he said. "You're here to hear music."

It sounds like people will be coming to Hacker's home to hear music for a long time. He, his wife and sons get to bond with nationally-touring musicians, many of whom spend the night at their home.

"We're doing it for the love of it," Hacker said. "It's an experience we wouldn't trade for anything."

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

For more information

•Treewild House Concerts, Shelburne – Upcoming shows include, May 29, The Irregulars; Sept. 19, Laura Feddersen and Nathan Gourley; Oct. 8, Laura Cortese and Jonas Bleckman; Nov. 1, Natalie and Brittany Haas with Yann Falquet of Genticorum; and Nov. 7, Ari and Mia Friedman. Most shows are $20. To be placed on the invitation list, email Alison James at alisonjamesvt@gmail.com.

•Billsville House Concerts, Manchester Center – The series is taking most of the summer off until an Aug. 29 performance by Parsonsfield. Cover charges vary but generally range from $10-$15. For information and to sign up for the mailing list visit www.billsvillehouseconcerts.com.

• Look for a video from the Young Tradition Vermont concert at the Shelburne home of Alison and Joplin James at www.burlingtonfreepress.com.